Written 30/04/04

This week our county councillor Jane Coston organised a presentation on Cambridge Northern Fringe (East) for parish councillors from all the surrounding parish councils. It has some big implications for the parish of Milton.

CNF(E) is the area of brown field land on Chesterton Sidings and the sewage works plus, potentially, some of the other land there such as the golf driving range and the Park and Ride site which is due to be re-developed as part of the Government's grand scheme to provide additional housing around Cambridge.

Phase 1, the sidings, will provide about 900 new homes and phase 2, the sewage works, a further 1400 or thereabouts.

Phase 1

Phase 1 is intended to include the development of a "Cambridge Parkway" railway station which will have car parking for 1000 cars, most of which will want to get into and out of there morning and evening which has all sorts of implications.

From a transport point of view phase 1 will involve the re-development of the A10/A14 junction to increase its capacity and a rearrangement of the Cowley Road and Science Park entrances. How exactly this is to be done is still being explored and how it all fits into the Guided Bus junction proposals seems somewhat unclear. The officers were hard to pin down on detail but the fairly definite proposals include two right turn lanes from Milton Road going south into the Science Park and (definitely) a new left turn only slip road from Milton Road onto the A14 westbound. Another lane on the very end of the A10 as it approaches the A14/A10 roundabout from the north seems likely too. This could result in loss of land at the Sycamores recreation ground. There is no proposal to dual the A10 around the bypass as the problem isn't the capacity of the road but the capacity of the junction.

Phase 1 may also involve the relocation of the Park and Ride site to somewhere north of the A14, possibly on land off Butt Lane, with a bus priority lane being added to the A10 going south. Again this could result in loss of land on Sycamores Rec.

As part of phase 1 they are also investigating how they could open up a new southern access road from Green End Road across the old railway line into CNF(E).

(There is no plan to close the level crossing on Chesterton Fen Road in phase 1, or in phase 2, which you may have seen proposed elsewhere.)

Phase 2

Phase 2 requires the removal of the sewage works to a new location! Initially mooted as being between Milton and Waterbeach there's now talk of it being put even further down river, north of Waterbeach. Either way there's some real questions about the economics of this - not only the moving of the works but also the cost of de-contaminating the land, which was originally an old fashioned sewage farm and so is badly contaminated.

As part of phase 2 there's a requirement to provide a better road transport link. The Highways Agency won't allow another junction onto the A14 between Milton and Fen Ditton so there is a proposal currently been talked about to put a new road in which would go north from the sewage works site under the A14 (which may be three lane by that stage,or will be shortly afterwards). This road would then turn west and by some means or another get to the A10/A14 junction!

Discussing this afterwards it's clear that it can't go under the cycle bridge: there is room for one additional lane for when the A14 goes to three lanes, but not three, so this road would have to come north of the end of the cycle bridge i.e. coming out at the Tesco roundabout. We find it hard to believe that anyone is seriously considering this, but the alternatives are equally unpalatable for other reasons, involving driving new roads across the Green Belt and the river towards Fen Ditton.

Unsurprisingly your councillors: county, district and parish; are somewhat concerned by some of the things which seem to be being proposed at the moment and we will be monitoring developments carefully.

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